


A Friend to the Spirit

by ChronicBookworm



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Friendship, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Past Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-16 15:36:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17552375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChronicBookworm/pseuds/ChronicBookworm
Summary: In her dreams, there was an angel, like in legends from Earth-that-Was, with blonde hair and a kind smile, and River knew that this angel meant her well; that she was here to protect her; that she was River’s sister.





	A Friend to the Spirit

**Author's Note:**

  * For [facethestrange](https://archiveofourown.org/users/facethestrange/gifts).



> FYI, this fic makes reference to canonical views of mental illness and uses some ableist language.

_A sister is a gift to the heart, a friend to the spirit, a golden thread to the meaning of life._

― Isadora James

 

They were on their way to Haven, to see the Shepherd and his new settlement. Mal was worried, and his worry hung like a mist over the ship, infesting every little corner and nook. It put River on edge, made her more unstable, which made Simon worry, and his worry hung over Mal’s worry, and the two worries fed off each other and grew, grew, grew, until they were everywhere and overwhelming her and she couldn’t, she just couldn’t, make it stop! Make it stop!

Simon was cradling her, but his hands burned her like ice where he touched her and his soft whispers were like dissonant klaxons echoing around the metal walls of the ship, and she couldn’t take it. Simon was fumbling for a sedative – he was going through them too fast, worryingly fast, they needed more, but where would they get them without money? Worries piled on top of worries, fighting for priority, adding up, multiplying, increasing exponentially. She felt the tiny prick of a needle, and suddenly the worries shrunk, became almost like tiny fuzzy balls, and then eventually disappeared, and she was floating away, out into space, surrounded by stars.

In her dreams, there was an angel, like in legends from Earth-that-Was, with blonde hair and a kind smile, and River knew that this angel meant her well; that she was here to protect her; that she was River’s sister.

She tried telling Simon about her sister, but he didn’t understand. Nobody understood.

“You got another sister you ain’t been telling us about?” Mal asked.

“No, I don’t know what she’s talking about. _Mei-mei_ , who is our sister? Who’s waiting for us?” Simon asked gently.

“Not _our_ sister,” she had to explain. “ _My_ sister.”

“I don’t understand,” Simon said, stating the obvious as usual. She just wished she had the words to explain it, how her sister was an angel, a better version of her, the platonic ideal, where River was a shadow on a cave wall. While some knowledge of philosophy was necessary to be able to call yourself educated, it generally wasn’t a focus in medical school, so it wasn’t surprising he didn’t get the reference. 

“Is your sister another student from the Academy?” he tried. “Or another psychic?”

He was getting warmer, but still not there.

“She’s an angel,” she tried. “She visits me in my dreams.”

“Is she dead?” he asked tentatively. “River, did your sister die?”

“More than once. That didn’t stop her.”

 _“Wuh de tyen, ah._ We got _undead_ crazy what-ever-the-hell River is, now?”

The crew descended into bickering about undead psychics, and River’s sister was if not forgotten, then at least left to be, for now, and then Mal put his foot down and they all went back to work.

*

The men from the Academy were coming for her. They were coming and they would cut into her, make a sieve. She was a sieve, full of holes that things ran through. That’s why they always came in pairs, with their hands in gloves. Sterile. Keeping things pure, clean. So that what spilled through her holes wouldn’t run onto them. They were covered in blood, but the gloves made so that nothing could touch them.

“Will you shut up about that ‘two by two, hands of blue’ thing. We got it already,” someone said in the distance. She wasn't sure who. Someone she didn’t really like. Whoever it was didn’t belong. They weren’t sterile, they weren’t clean. Everything that went through her, everything she couldn’t keep contained, that ran through her holes would spill out over them. They didn’t have gloves. They weren’t protected. They had to wear gloves. They were trying to constrain her, someone was murmuring low, soothing things to her, but they didn’t understand. The men from the Academy were coming in their pairs of two, and she would explode, and those with their hands in blue gloves would be safe, but everyone else would be left with her spill-overs.

“It’s okay, River, it’s okay,” Simon said. But it wasn’t okay. She wasn’t okay.

*

“We’ve had some new people join us since you were last here,” Book said when they arrived at Haven, and then her sister was there. Her sister, who wasn’t an undead psychic. Her sister, who wasn’t an angel. Her sister, who was real.

Her sister was there, and she was beautiful. Others might see her blonde hair and pretty face, but River saw her lithe form, her graceful stance that betrayed her strength.

“You’re my sister,” she blurted out. Her sister blinked.

“OK, I’m pretty sure we’re not actually related, but I’m very pro sisterhood of woman…hood,” she trailed off when River shook her head.

“Not sister like that.” How to make her understand? There was one girl in all the world, but that wasn’t true, was it, because maybe the Academy had succeeded, maybe there were many again, and you couldn’t call it two, because River was not one, not yet, maybe not ever, and there wasn’t one world, there were several, so how could the old adage fit the new reality? How could there be one girl in all the world, when there maybe was more than one girl, and there was definitely more than one world? Where were the words to make her see? “Once there was one, then there were two, then there were many, and then there were none.”

It seemed like those were the right words – a look of comprehension stole over her sister’s face, followed by sadness. River was struck by a sudden fondness for her sister, who understood here even when the words didn’t come out right.

“There are none left?” River’s sister asked, sounding forlorn.

“Nobody left to Choose, so nobody to be the Chosen One.”

“But if we’re sisters, then you might be – ?” she levelled a hopeful look at River, who had to shake her head.

“Not like you. You’re _Joan of Arc_ , I’m _Ma Jolie_. My pieces don't fit together properly.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t get it.”

She’d tried to pick references from Earth-that-Was that her sister might understand, ways to get her point across when she didn’t know herself exactly what she meant, but maybe they were too late, or too early, for her sister to understand. Or maybe her sister didn’t like art.

“I’m wrong,” River explained. “I don’t make sense.”

“I don’t either,” River’s sister said. “But that’s never stopped me. Plenty of people tried to tell me that there was something wrong with me, that I was lacking, that I was just a weak little girl. It wasn’t true about me, and I’m fairly certain it’s not true about you.”

“Someone care to fill the rest of us in on this little family reunion you’ve got going on here?” Mal said, impatient. “River, how do you know this Joan, if that’s your name?”

“This is Mal, the captain of Serenity,” River introduced him to her sister. “This is my sister,” she introduced her sister.

“Yeah, I think we all got that part. What I want to know is how the _tianxiaode_ this Joan, or whoever she is, is your sister, and what the hell is going on?”

“What is it with people thinking my name's Joan? My name’s Buffy Summers, not Joan,” River’s sister said, holding out a hand for Mal to shake. “And I think we’re metaphorical sisters. Joined by fate, or destiny, or whatever.”

She looked to River to see if she’d gotten it right, and if was saying too much or too little, and River gave her an encouraging smile.

“Ain’t no such thing as fate or destiny.”

“Then I guess we’re joined by whatever. ‘There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy’,” Buffy quoted. “Or is that meant to be ‘on Heaven and Earth’? I can’t remember. I was never good at English. Do you guys even have Shakespeare in this dimension, universe, future time, or whatever it is?”

“Is she as crazy as you?” Mal asked River.

“Please don't call either me or my sister crazy," Buffy said seriously. "Metaphorical or otherwise.”

She'd found her way over so she was standing slightly in front of River. River was touched, even though she didn't need it, but it said a great deal about Buffy's character that she'd not only accept it when someone called her 'sister' out of the blue, but she'd immediately feel protective. River supposed it was the big sister instincts. She wondered what would happen when Buffy realised River wasn't a green glowing cube, just a girl they'd cut up and put together wrong.

“I don’t much appreciate when people deflect my questions with words that don't even make sense. I’d prefer it if you could answer me straight.”

Mal needed to be in control, always. He didn’t accept that the ‘verse didn’t always let you be in control.

“I’ve often found that the easiest way to avoid disappointment is to not want things, Captain Reynolds,” Buffy replied glibly, moving her arm in such a way as to telegraph her every movement before throwing an arm around River’s shoulders and squeezing. River’s sister was pretty great.

*

Mal was suspicious of River's sister, but Mal was suspicious of everyone.

“She deflects like a professional,” Inara said. “I couldn’t get any sense of who she is, what her background is. But I don’t think she was trained as a Companion.”

“See, that there’s why I don’t trust her,” Mal said. “Inara can read people like most people read books. I don’t trust anyone 'less I know where they’re from. What planet you grew up on says a lot about the kind of person you might be.”

“Buffy’s not from any planet in the ‘verse,” River said.

“How does that work? Is she from a planet not in the ‘verse?” Wash asked. He was curious, not suspicious. Mal wanted to ask the same question, but he was suspicious, not curious.

“It doesn’t need to be so fantastical,” Zoe suggested. “It could be she grew up on a spaceship.”

“Don’t be sensical when I want to be mistrustful,” Mal grumbled.

“Why don’t you speak to the Shepherd about her, see what he knows?” Zoe suggested.

“Might be I’ll do just that,” Mal said.

*

“That new girl of yours is a mite strange, shepherd,” Mal told Book in the center of the village.

“Haven is a home to all who would call it such. We don’t tend to pry in each other’s affairs,” Book replied.

“Also, it’s rude to comment on people where they can hear,” Buffy said, poking her head round the doorframe. They were a little ways off from her cottage, but Buffy’s hearing was better than River’s, when River didn’t use her Reader powers.

“You gotta admit, there’s plenty of stuff you ain’t said,” Mal said, completely unashamed to have been caught. “For example, I never did get much clarity on how you’re River’s sister.”

“We share certain abilities,” Buffy said, and River made her way over to help and support her. Or to get help and support from her, she wasn’t sure. River’s sister might not have River’s psychic powers, but she was stronger than River when it came to her core. She knew who she was.

“You’re a Reader, too? _Ta ma de_.” He didn’t sound surprised, just resigned.

“Reader?”

“You know, someone who knows things. Knows what’s going to happen, can tell what people are thinking.”

“She can read minds?” Buffy turned to River. “You can read minds?”

“I take it that’s not something you can do?” Mal asked, one eyebrow raised.

“They opened my mind, but then they forgot to close it again,” River explained. “Now I’m a sieve leaking everywhere.”

Buffy looked horrified.

“Someone did that to you? Gave you psychic powers you didn’t want?”

“Did more than that,” Mal said grimly.

“Made me into a weapon, loaded me and cocked me, but they aimed me wrong, and now I aim myself,” River said. “Sometimes,” she added.

“Why on Earth would they do such a thing?” Buffy asked. “That seems like asking for trouble.”

“They were aiming to bring old legends to life, to recreate the protectors of Earth-that-Was.”

“Well, given that Earth apparently is no more, maybe they should have picked a different example to follow? Also, if they thought psychic powers were the key to the Slayers, ho boy were they wrong.”

“You keep talking in riddles, and I don’t much like that,” Mal complained. “What’s a Slayer?”

“I hope you never have reason to find out,” Buffy said seriously. It sounded like a threat, but it wasn’t.

“You make it very hard for me to trust you,” he said.

“Good,” she responded cheerily. “A healthy dose of suspicion is one of the key ways to stay alive, I’ve always found.”

*

River’s sister dreamt of Earth. Not terraformed planets, not Earth-that-Was, but Earth, from when it was. Buffy had grown up there, on the continent called North America, in a place called Sunnydale, then Los Angeles, then Rome. The names sounded strange and exotic, the distant forbears of place names River knew.

“Tell me about Earth,” she asked, and her sister did.

“Tell me about – this place,” Buffy asked, “this system, this so-called ‘verse,” and River did. The words seemed to come easily when she told Buffy about Sihnon, about Persephone, about the war, and Serenity, the battle Mal had named his ship after. It was only when she talked about the Academy that the words dried up, got caught in her throat on the way up, and Buffy held her, strong, firm, and told her she wasn’t okay, but that was okay, because she was strong, and brave, and beautiful, and she had survived so much, and would survive so much more. She even managed to make River believe it.

*

They left to take a job, one of the few jobs they could get. It was her fault, she knew. They had to turn down several jobs because they couldn’t afford to be noticed by the Alliance because of her, and once you turned down too many jobs, well, people stopped offering you jobs to turn down. Mal wanted her off his ship, before she drove off all of his opportunities. She understood, even if Simon didn’t. Simon wanted to believe the best of her. Simon wanted to believe she was still his _mei-mei_. He wouldn’t accept that she was unfixable, that what they’d done to her was irreversible, that she wasn’t a girl, but a weapon. Simon looked at her and saw a girl. She wasn’t sure if she admired that in him, or pitied it. Mal looked at her and saw a weapon. Mal was pragmatic – if he had a weapon, why shouldn’t he use it? She wondered what her sister saw when she looked at River.

*

Simon minded when Mal used River as a weapon, but River didn’t. She was a weapon, but she was also a girl. They created her, loaded her, cocked her, but she could aim herself. She could choose who got to use her, and how.

Except apparently she couldn’t. She was a bomb, primed to go off, not a gun, it turned out. She would take out everything in her path, and then there would be nothing left.

*

They went to see Inara, and then they went back to Haven – where else would they go? They were chasing her, smoking her out of her hole, cutting off escape routes, one by one. Inara wasn’t safe, and neither was Haven, despite its name. The Alliance had been there. But they hadn’t been expecting River’s sister. They thought they knew of all the living weapons in the ‘verse, they knew what to expect, but they hadn’t met River's sister, the Chosen One, the longest living Slayer on Earth (or any other planet, but specifically on Earth), a legend come back to life.

But they weren’t safe at Haven – the Alliance would bomb the planet from outside atmo, if they had to. They evacuated, and Buffy came along on Serenity. River wondered how much she had fought Mal for that, or if he’d asked her. He grumbled a lot, but he was pragmatic when it came down to it, and a soft on the inside. He didn’t understand how River and Buffy were related, just that they were. Families, especially ones not related by blood, should be allowed to stay together. She liked that about him.

*

River listening to conversations she couldn’t hear. She was there, but not there. Only in her mind.

“Where’s River?” Her sister was wondering about her. So protective. She didn’t have a planet to protect any longer, so she picked a girl. A girl could be as big as a planet, but River wasn’t. River wasn’t even a girl.

“She went crazy in a bar, so we had to deploy extraordinary measures.” That was Mal, dry and pragmatic. But he wasn’t as unaffected as he seemed. He did what he had to to protect his crew, but he took no pleasure in it.

“You had her strapped down and tied her up?!” Her sister was sweet in her concern, but she didn’t understand that unlike her, River was a missile without a target. Buffy was a sniper rifle, a precision weapon, whereas River was a sledgehammer.

“We had no choice!” he said, defensively.

“I’m pretty sure I can control her, if needs be. I don’t believe in locking people up.”

River left the conversation and went into her own mind. She didn’t come back up until the next morning.

*

Miranda was death. It was death, and ghosts, and fear, and misery, and rage – rage beyond human capabilities, unspeakable, all-consuming rage.

But Miranda was also absolution, relief. This terrible secret she had carried, no longer just hers. She could tell the final words of these people, give them peace. Lay the ghosts to rest.

“Is this something they have a history of doing? Trying to improve people using unethical means?” Buffy asked.

“They did it to me.”

“I know. I know they did, and they had no right,” she said, sounding determined. “But I’ll make it right.”

*

“After we’ve done this,” Buffy asked Mal, as they made their way across Reaver territory with the information about what had been done on Miranda, “would you consider going on an additional mission? I might have some more things to say to the Alliance, outside of what they did on Miranda.”

“And what kind of things might they be?”

“Mostly the kind of things that can be said with violence. I’ve never been a fan of old men telling young girls what they should be.”

“You stay on the ship, you work for me. I ain’t running no charity ship. And I don’t want no trouble with Alliance.”

“Oh, you won’t have any. The Alliance will have trouble with _me_ ,” Buffy said.

River believed her.


End file.
